SnIPpets

In this recent case before the Court of Appeal, PulseOn, an optical heart rate technology company, sued Garmin, a competitor, for infringement of its registered Community design (RCD) rights. The High Court had held at first instance that PulseOn's RCDs were valid but not infringed and the Court of Appeal followed suit and rejected all four grounds of appeal and held that there was no basis for the Court of Appeal to interfere with the High Court's assessment of overall impression.

We have been tracking developments in the ongoing dispute between Conversant and Huawei in relation to a global FRAND licence. In this latest ruling, the Court of Appeal has agreed that the English courts, and not those in China, are the right forum for the case, as we discuss in this blog.

In the latest round of Unwired Planet International Ltd v Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd & Ors, previously discussed in our blogs, the Court of Appeal has rejected Huawei's appeal against the High Court's decision of April 2017.

Earlier this week, the UK Court of Appeal delivered its keenly awaited ruling in the dispute between the UK retailer Argos and Argos Systems, a US company. Although the retailer ultimately lost its appeal, the court did disagree with some key aspects of the High Court's decision, including on the question of website targeting, as we discuss briefly in this blog.

A follow up discussion on the recent Court of Appeal judgment in The London Taxi Corporation Ltd (t/a the London Taxi Company) v Frazer-Nash Research Ltd & Anor [2017] EWCA Civ 1729: Part II – average consumer

The issue of how unauthorised dealers may make use of trade marks in relation to genuine spare parts and repair services has often sat uncomfortably in the context of trade mark infringement. Following the Court of Appeal's recent decision in BMW v Technosport, there is now clarification as to when a brand owner may object to use of their marks which goes further than merely describing the services offered and implies an association with the brand owner.

In Synthon BV v Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd [2017] EWCA Civ 148, the Court of Appeal upheld the validity of a patent for purification of a drug used in treating multiple sclerosis, holding, in particular, that "the judge was plainly entitled to reject as unreliable" the evidence of obviousness adduced by Synthon's expert witness. The court also affirmed the High Court's ruling that two claims of the patent were invalid for added matter.

In the recent case of Teva UK Ltd v Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co KG [2016] EWCA Civ 1296 the Court of Appeal held that the approach to granting permission to appeal in patent cases as previously set out in Pozzoli SPA v BDMO SA [2007] EWCA Civ 588 should no longer be followed (and is not followed in practice in any event) and that CPR 52.3(6) was a uniform standard to be applied to all applications for permission to appeal.

On 27 July, the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in Hospira v Genentech, an appeal from the decision of Birss J dated 21 November 2014 concerning the revocation of two patents covering pharmaceutical formulations of Herceptin. At first instance, the judge had held both patents invalid on the grounds of lack of inventive step and added matter.